During his recent trip to the US, the Pope expressed his shame at the dreadful mistakes his church made in relation to child abuse. Now, it may be the turn of the media to apologise for their complicity in another form of evil. For, according to a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the most significant form of social evil is the "individualism, consumerism and decline of community" that is stoked by, amongst other actors, the media.

The report was based on an online survey of 3,500 people who answered questions on what the current social evils are and the reasons behind them. A range of familiar suspects made the list, including drugs and alcohol, a decline in values, inequality and poverty, violence, crime and religion (this included those that thought religion fostered evil, and those that thought it prevented it, and therefore that its decline fostered evil).

However, top of the list was the "me, me, me" society. The fundamental issue seemed to be the attitude that says my primary responsibility is towards myself and possibly my family. People no longer cared about their neighbours or colleagues in any meaningful sense - Lord of the Flies writ large.

Feeding this worship of the self were the twin gods of consumerism and celebrity culture. Consumerism feeds it because every act of consumption reinforces the idea that I exist purely for my own sake. The celebrity culture fuels it because as soon as we start worshipping people for no other reason than their ability to attract such worship then our locus of admiration has shifted from an aptitude, such as artistic ability, to the individual as an individual.

In the report, the responsibility for this plague of self-indulgence was laid squarely at the doors of politicians, financial institutions and in particular the media (understood broadly to include advertising). Of course, all of this was predicted some 75 years ago in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, set in a time when people are enslaved not by chains of iron but by chains of banality. The question, then, is what can we do about it? And it is here that we need some radical alternatives.

Firstly, governments need to stop paying lip service to the idea that wellbeing is defined by economic prosperity. Of course, successive waves of politicians make noises along these lines, but as soon as they realise the motivational power of money, they tend to revert to type. Yet we are now inundated with studies that have shown that the accumulation of either money or stuff simply doesn't deliver the sense of wellbeing for which we all long. Despite this, though, we continue with the mantra of economic growth to the almost complete exclusion of any other narrative.

What if the only way to reverse climate change or to bring about a more equitable distribution of global resources was for our western economies to shrink? What if we had to become poorer in order for others to grow rich? Would any politician or public commentator even suggest such a thing? Perhaps we should at least consider this question - and stop the relentless train of economic growth that makes the rich richer at the expense of the poor.

Secondly, we need to recover the idea that the pursuit of pleasure is not an end in itself, but merely the means to an end. The logic of hedonism is such that it is only possible by addressing a desire that is, as yet, unsatisfied. Hence when a society makes pleasure its primary aim, relentless consumerism is the inevitable result. What if instead we pursued the logic of satisfaction whereby our goal is not the endless pursuit of desire itself, but rather contentment with what we already have? Indeed, what if contentment was found not in satisfying new desires, but in the deliberate relinquishment for the sake of others of what we already possess? What if personal downsizing became not just the mantra, but the practice, of our age?

And finally what if we acknowledged where we have got things wrong? Thatcher didn't invent the atomised society, she simply gave voice to the devil within. But what if we returned to a sense of interdependence, where what is admired is the ability to turn our character, competence and industry to the service of others, rather than to the service of the self.

A good start in that direction might be an apology from the media but the chances of that happening are minimal. God help us all.